Big Sur – With the reopening of Pfeiffer Beach on Oct. 14, officials are looking into running a shuttle from Highway 1 to the parking lot to ease congestion along one-lane Sycamore Canyon Road.

“It’s a huge public health and safety concern,” said Kate Daniels, chief of staff for Mary Adams, who represents the area on the Monterey County Board of Supervisors.

The beach is a part of the Monterey District of the U.S. Forest Service and according to Andrew Madsen, a Forest Service public affairs officer, the problem of congestion on the road increased over the years.

“When that road was first built, there might have been two or three people that lived back there and used the road to access their property,” he said. “Monterey County zoned it up and now you’ve got more than 80 people that use that road to get back to their homes.”

Madsen said an increase in Big Sur tourism increased gridlock on the road.

“Big Sur is a global destination and on the one hand, that’s really good for business. … On the other hand, those are all very small roads up in that part of the world,” he said. “When they were originally built, they didn’t have that expectation that they were going to have so many people coming up there.”

The danger comes when the road gets gridlocked after the parking lot fills up.

“If there’s a need for an emergency vehicle, sometimes there’s no way to get in or out because the traffic simply isn’t moving, it’s a one-lane road,” Daniels said.

When the parking lot fills up, Daniels said Parks Management Co., which operates the beach, tells people to walk down Sycamore Canyon Road to the beach.

“There’s no services, no bathrooms, no water (along that walk down to the beach),” Daniels said. “All around, it’s a just a bad situation: people pushing baby carriages, not wearing appropriate shoes on a hot day, not having any water and when they need to use the restroom, they do and it’s really not good for the water systems that are just below the surface.”

Daniels said residents have expressed concern to Adams’ office about the issue and it’s something the supervisor remains committed to fixing. Adams played a key role in getting shuttle service to the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge while it was being rebuilt and Daniels said the supervisor hopes to get a similar project done to Pfeiffer Beach.

Adams convened a group of residents, members of the hospitality industry and the visitor’s bureau as well as officials from the Forest Service, Parks Management Co., State Parks and the California Coastal Commission to begin the dialogue recently. Daniels said State Parks attended the meeting because they’ve successfully set up shuttle service to Hearst Castle and have interest in possibly creating a shuttle to Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. The meeting led to the Coastal Commission reaching out to the Forest Service shortly after.

“I got the sense that it was the first time the Coastal Commission was really putting pressure on the Forest Service to address the management of the beach and the traffic and safety issues and they were doing it through the request for an operations plan that actually addressed management better than previous operation plans had,” Daniels said.

According to Madsen, Parks Management Co. can only charge visitors per vehicle in its 10-year special permit with the Forest Service.

“We would have to go back and look at the language in the contract to see whether or how we could do it,” Madsen said. “Would the shuttle operator charge three bucks a head and then every time he got down and dropped off he would pay 40 bucks to the concessionaire?”

Daniels agreed that a collaborative approach will be needed to solve the problem.

“We are going to continue to convene groups on this topic until we have a shuttle in place,” she said.

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